Tag: Southern Sayings

Small towns are notorious for it. It can spread faster than a pat of butter on a hot biscuit. It can be funny or hurtful, friendly or mean, true as true can be or bald-faced lies. It’s repercussions can last for just a hot minute or for years and years and years. What is this…

Pigs are popular in the South, both on our farms and on our plates. The poor vegetarian is hard pressed to find so much as a collard leaf that hasn’t been seasoned with salt pork or a sliver of green tomato that hasn’t been fried in lard. And all manner of swine flesh appears on…

It’s time we had a frank discussion about hell. You know … down there, the hot place, Hades. Anyone who’s ever sat through a Baptist sermon knows that if you don’t get right, you’re gonna get left (thank you to my friend Phil Proctor for giving me that saying many years ago). I have to…

It not the heat it’s the damned humidity! You hear that plenty down here in the South. And it’s true! Our close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico means that the air is pretty well waterlogged with tropical moisture. And while this muggy climate is great for your skin, it’s bad for your health. You…

Come late spring, early summer we in the South, at least here in Alabama, enter a strange weather period. It could be 90 degrees one day, but it might be 70 the next. One minute it’s dead calm and you think you’ll drown in the humidity, then all of a sudden a nice breeze will…

The question of the day is just where is “yonder”? Or should the question be how far away is “yonder”? Or maybe it’s what the hell is a “yonder”? If you already know the answer, you’re a card-carrying Southerner but you should still read on for fun. If you don’t know the answer, today’s your…

For Mother’s Day, I wrote about what an ill-tempered child I was. Mama’s mantra to me during my growing-up years was “You’ve got to learn to control your temper.” And it’s mostly worked. Now, whenever I feel a little flare up, I hear Mama’s calm voice and try to go to a happy place. But…

Some days an idea hits me. Ker-BLAAAP!!! I don’t know where it comes from. It just appears, all of a sudden like, in my mind. And before I can hardly get to my keyboard, the words come rushing out, in pretty much the right order, and line up across the page like little soldiers in…

Turnips are dumb. They’re poor too. Bless their silly, impoverished hearts. You’ve heard it said before: I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. It’s a phrase that’s used to indicate that you’re not naive, you’re not ignorant, you’re not a gullible rube riding in the back of the flatbed with a bunch of sad…

I keep a list. Written in pen on paper. Plus, I have a spreadsheet. Once I started collecting the Southern sayings, I couldn’t stop! My little list that started out with a couple of phrases scribbled on a piece of scratch paper has since grown to at least 400 colloquialisms, and I’m trying to figure…